Billy Squier chats about The Stroke and success in December 1989

During his youthful teenage #AlmostFamous days as music critic at The Evening Sun in Baltimore, Nestor Aparicio chatted with many legends coming through the area on tour. This is the first of two with the leader of the band who once opened for Kiss at the Capital Centre.

Billy Squier discussed his current tour, expressing satisfaction with its momentum and noting that touring feels natural to him. He reflected on past challenges, including a disappointing album produced by Collins, which sold 700,000 units despite lackluster promotion from his record company. Squier highlighted his dedication to making quality music, despite limited support from Capital Records. He mentioned his relationship with Bon Jovi and Desmond Child, and the positive reception of his live performances, which include both old hits and new material. Squier emphasized his resilience and optimism, despite industry cynicism, and his commitment to engaging directly with his fan base.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

tour exhaustion, momentum generation, touring experience, record production issues, record company neglect, album sales, publicity challenges, new president, positive feedback, live performances, old hits, new members, songwriting collaboration, Christmas song, audience connection

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Billy Squier

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Yes. Hey, how you doing? I’m

Billy Squier  00:02

a little tired. A little tired.

Nestor Aparicio  00:05

I was gonna ask, gonna be one of my questions here, big

Billy Squier  00:07

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show in New York last night.

Nestor Aparicio  00:09

Yeah, I heard you. It’s

Billy Squier  00:10

always very exhausting.

Nestor Aparicio  00:12

Yeah, I heard you on the radio from Pittsburgh the other night. Good stuff. I only heard like about 10 minutes. I was like, I caught the hits. So how is it? Yeah, they’re all hits in your mind, that’s right. So how’s the tour going? As far as you can tell, I’m

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Billy Squier  00:28

very happy with that.

Nestor Aparicio  00:29

Well, it seems like it’s grueling. You know, on paper, it looks grueling, at least.

Billy Squier  00:36

I think these things generate their own sort of momentum. You start out. Reports of the shows go around. People start hearing about it. The promoters hear about and the press writes about it. If it’s going well, whichever way it’s going, it usually sort of translates. It starts spreading on its own, and I’m very happy with it.

Nestor Aparicio  00:57

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But is it kind of a shock to your body to be running around on tour busses once again,

Billy Squier  01:04

not at all. It’s like riding a bicycle. Actually.

Nestor Aparicio  01:08

Never forget, huh?

Billy Squier  01:09

No, I’m doing it better now than I do, you know, than I did four years ago.

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Nestor Aparicio  01:14

Did you come out on the road four years ago with enough is enough? No,

Billy Squier  01:17

I didn’t, yeah. See, I

Nestor Aparicio  01:18

don’t remember hearing your name or seeing your name on a marquee here since like, 1983

Billy Squier  01:25

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happy with the way, what everything that was going on at the time around that record. And in retrospect, I think I probably should have gone out for just a little, just for a few shows, just to keep my name and, you know, sort of in the public, public consciousness. But I was a bit discouraged. I wanted to, I want to get back in the studio and do something which I felt we really set things straight.

Nestor Aparicio  01:45

What went wrong with that project.

Billy Squier  01:47

I let someone else produce it, basically.

Nestor Aparicio  01:51

And that’s, that’s enough

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Billy Squier  01:53

to throw it off. That’s totally it. I can honestly say it’s totally it. So

Nestor Aparicio  01:58

what kinds of things happened when you you bring 12 songs in and say, here they are. You know, he

Billy Squier  02:03

wouldn’t, basically, wouldn’t let us play together. He had a very, very specific way of recording, and he was, he wouldn’t let the band play together. He made us all play to click tracks. And who was this? Who produced? Collins? Okay, he’s an English producer, very sterile, very clinical, totally. I mean, I didn’t have a clue about what makes great rock bands. I was just led to believe that he would be able to help me. And it was, you know, it was an expensive lesson, but a good one. But he just totally took all the soul out of the band.

Nestor Aparicio  02:35

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Isn’t there a point where, with your successes that you had, that you could, you had enough clout to say, hey, this guy’s not my record.

Billy Squier  02:43

Yeah, but I’m the kind of person that, once I commit to an experiment that I’m I, you know, if I, if I bailed out the middle of it, I would have been accused of being an egomaniac, you know, and being stubborn and not not willing to, you know, to, you know, give other people a chance to see what they could do. So I was kind of, I felt that I was sort of stuck. It was kind of a point of, you know, I couldn’t win either way. I knew it was going wrong, but I knew that if I backed out, that things would be I would suffer a certain other, you know, other fate. So basically, what I did was just tough it out and kept, kept the record, you know, kind of in the realm of what my records are like, I think it’s a really good record. I just, I just don’t think it was allowed to reach its potential. This guy kind of, you know, squashed it, but it’s not anything that I’m unhappy about. I like it a lot. A lot of people think it’s the best record ever made. So there

Nestor Aparicio  03:36

you go. Why didn’t we hear it on the radio more? That’s

Billy Squier  03:39

my record company that they treated us like a total non event, and it barely was released. I mean, it sold 700,000 records, which is amazing, which is like a totally unknown fact, which I found out only the other day by getting it asking for a sales print. I mean, they never gave me a gold record or anything. And we were just doing some, you know, we’re going through some, some numbers and things we got as for sales, print on that six 700,000 units, really, that didn’t do that badly. It must

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Nestor Aparicio  04:10

seem like you’re terribly jaded, because I’ve talked to three bands today that would die to have 700,000

Billy Squier  04:17

it’s not bad. Other records and I have sold millions. So I’m just saying that we’re getting no, absolutely no help from the record company, which was insane, because I was a pretty big artist for them, they did absolutely nothing, and getting almost no exposure, still sold that many records. So in the end, it turns out to be not such a bad project, but it was, it was very disappointing to me and for the guys the band, because we felt, as I said, that there was a lot more promise in the record that, you know, could have been realized had other people do their job. I’m not saying this to make excuses, because I don’t live my life making excuses, but this is one case where this happens to be the truth. All

Nestor Aparicio  04:57

right, so I I’m spinning. Down the road listening to the radio, and I hear, don’t say you love me by this guy named Billy squire, who I haven’t heard of in five years. Where were you during during this? I mean, between enough is enough, because I knew you had an album out, but I never heard a song

Billy Squier  05:12

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from it. But the fall of 86 when I was working on me, I started this record in the spring of 87 finished at the end of 88 because I was working very hard to make sure that it was a record that would be noticed. So I was writing a lot and recording a lot and going in and out of the studio. Basically, I was in the studio for all the time.

Nestor Aparicio  05:31

Is that hard work? Yeah, it’s

Billy Squier  05:33

very hard. I hope that I don’t have to do it again. I mean, I think it was definitely necessary in this project, and it was worth doing on this project, but I don’t want to become the standard. So you spend, you don’t have to make you don’t have to take that one and make records. But I just, I just felt I was under a lot of internal pressure to do it, you know, to answer all these questions and doubts that people had about me. So I just felt that I better, you know, make sure that I came out with my guns blazing.

Nestor Aparicio  06:00

So it took you 18 months to make 45 minutes? Well, I was in the

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Billy Squier  06:04

studio about 10 months, which is still a long time. But you know, between writing and writing and rehearsing, recording and stopping and listening and thinking about it and all that, it was about 18 months

Nestor Aparicio  06:15

now, what has been the second release in this album? I don’t even know. Don’t let

Billy Squier  06:19

me go. Has just been released as a well, you wouldn’t, because capital isn’t doing anything with it. Because capital doesn’t work their records, they just put them out and hope that something happens. But is this your

Nestor Aparicio  06:31

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last album? Capital, maybe.

Billy Squier  06:32

Okay, not. No. It isn’t, in terms of my contract, okay, just came to a point where there’s no reason to make records for them that you know the way they’re going now, but I will say they just got a new president in so funny. You’d say

Nestor Aparicio  06:47

that because I had a real hard time getting to you. I called about 20 different numbers just to find out who was doing your publicity. Because everybody had somebody else. I even wound up talking to people to manufacture your shirts in Macon, Georgia, or

Billy Squier  07:00

something better idea than the people record, something you always try to be optimistic if it doesn’t do a good negative attitude. And the capital just got a new president who came from a lecture, and a lecture is a pretty aggressive label, so we’ll see what he has to say.

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Nestor Aparicio  07:15

Is it easy to get cynical?

Billy Squier  07:19

Oh, I’m very cynical about it, but I don’t, I’m not bitter. I don’t let this I don’t let those feelings rule my life. I acknowledge them, which you can’t pretend they don’t exist. But I don’t walk around going, this is, you know, this sucks, right? I say this is the reality. This is what they’re doing or not doing. What can I do? So, you know, I make the best records I can, and now I’m going on tour, and, you know, the shows speak for themselves, so we’re getting a lot of positive feedback from that. And I’m just, I’m just doing what I can do. I’m doing as many interviews as I can. I’m doing as much, you know, press, everything that I can, just to, you know, it’s kind of like a one man army, and that people, they can’t stop me from doing that. So it’s kind of like starting from a grassroots level, in a way. And obviously I’ve got to, I have a core audience, and I just have to get out there to them as any way, any way I can. You showed the rich last night sold out. Oh yeah, it was there, like people out in the streets. We could have done, we could have done bigger, a bigger show, but I wanted to do small places. This tour I want. I wanted to create, you know, an aura of excitement, and it was making really an event. So I wanted to play places where they’d be oversold houses, as opposed to going into the garden or something, and doing 10,000 seats out of 20,

Nestor Aparicio  08:33

right. Okay, looking through the album, I didn’t realize you were friends with John Bon Jovi. How did this all come about?

Billy Squier  08:41

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I produced a demo for him back in the early days. This is a runaway before that. Oh, really. Ever since he used to call me up for advice about different things managers and producers and publicists and things like that, he came into his own, and then just sort of got an equal fleet with me, which is great. The relationships become, sort of one of peers, which is, is great. It’s great for me. Obviously, I’m very I’m very happy for him. I’m very proud of what he’s done. And it’s nice to have another person you can look straight in the eye have respect for.

Nestor Aparicio  09:23

So I noticed another Bon Jovi, another Tony with the original spelling is that a brother,

Billy Squier  09:31

cousins. They’re loads of Bon Jovi’s, but they’re definitely related. Oh, I didn’t realize that Bon Jovi changed the spelling of his name. I

Nestor Aparicio  09:37

spent some time with him over the summer, when he was in town here. Real good guy. I mean, the whole success thing hasn’t changed him a bit. I can just tell. I mean, I don’t even know him before, but he’s just a good guy now, Desmond Child, did he come to you through Bon Jovi or through kiss or through a con? I

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Billy Squier  09:56

wrote Desmond tail to tape when my first record. So Desmond and I were working together before any of these other people even knew who he was.

Nestor Aparicio  10:05

Well, he worked with Kiss way back when,

Billy Squier  10:08

this is around the same time that he was working with me. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio  10:13

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so this maybe comes through the whole Piper bit after that, just after that, I

Billy Squier  10:17

just wondered, I just thought writing a couple songs with somebody else, because I’ve been writing because I’ve been writing, I’ve been spending so much time by myself doing this record, you know, I just felt that I could use the, you know, little outside input. So I had some songs that weren’t finished, and I just brought him in and said, you know, what do you think of these? You like any of these? You want to work on them. And he picked out a couple, and then we just finished them off. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio  10:41

so how is the old stuff going over live, and how you incorporate new members of your band, like Jimmy Crespo? I saw him with Aerosmith and few years back,

Billy Squier  10:50

really well, he’s a really good rock guitar player. That’s not that hard to fit. It fit in. That’s the kind of music that he’s, you know, that he likes to play. So that is very difficult. Everything goes over great. The old stuff is, like, you know, the risk of saying horribly immodest is legendary. You know, this is what people tell me. That’s kind of the reaction I play lonely tonight people, you know, the place like, explodes. It’s kind of like that. So it’s really quite fun to go out and realize that the music that you’ve made is had this sort of impact on people? Well, I got to

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Nestor Aparicio  11:23

be honest with you, after a long time being away, you know, hearing in the dark the other night in the car, it was like it brought back the old memories. And I was like the ninth grade when that song came out. And

Billy Squier  11:33

it was like, good songs should do. I think certainly it’s part of it.

Nestor Aparicio  11:36

I think maybe the best part of it is that I hadn’t heard it in so long, and then you realize it’s a good song, if you hear it every two weeks on the radio, you know, like you hear, you know, Stairway to Heaven, you kind of, it kind of loses its edge after you’ve heard it for the millionth time. You know, are you playing Christmas this time? Say I love you at all?

Billy Squier  11:53

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No, no. We don’t really have time to be honest, and it’s not close enough to Christmas. But we, we’re trying, you know, we’re cramming a lot into the shows just just under two hours. And we can’t, we can’t even get nearly all the stuff and I’d like to do so I don’t think we’ll be doing that. You’re not leaving really, like, I really like the song well, you know, I leave it for the radio to play. How

Nestor Aparicio  12:13

did that whole thing come about?

Billy Squier  12:15

I was just sitting around one, you know, one Christmas season, thinking about Christmas and what it meant. And, you know, just came up with a sentiment. And that’s, you know, that’s what I that’s what I write, you know, I write about sentiment, you know, when I have something to express, and I just thought that that was a sentiment worth expressing. So I just went for it.

Nestor Aparicio  12:35

Also, shame you don’t play it lie. If

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Billy Squier  12:37

we did a Christmas show or so, obviously we would. I love this song. I love the song? I just, I just think there’s a lot more stuff that I want to be doing. Are

Nestor Aparicio  12:46

you leaving any of the hits out? What do you leave out?

Billy Squier  12:50

I can’t

Nestor Aparicio  12:51

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tell you. I’m coming to the show.

Billy Squier  12:53

It depends on the night. We just can’t do them all. Well, we do, we do most of them, but we usually we can’t do them all. So we usually wanted to get dropped out. But no, we don’t leave anybody disappointed. We do enough of them. I

Nestor Aparicio  13:09

appreciate you calling me, and I hope to get some rest. There I was in New York. Okay, just New York is

Billy Squier  13:14

just exhausting, because, you know, everybody in the world comes to the show and everybody wants you sort of you.